Renee lay stretched out on the snow, her hands still grasping at where the spring had hit her on her mid-stomach.

“I am such an idiot,” she said in obvious pain. She didn't make any move to get up but instead lifted her hands away from her stomach so Temmit could see the three-inch needle that was half embedded into her abdomen. Blood from the wound trickled down her hands. Temmit could see a small pool of blood staining her heavy riding shirt around the protruding needle.

“Didn’t think this was serious enough for a trap, my mating arrogance got me good that time.” she said. “I am going to need a potion from my bag, Emma and I made some fo...” she stopped as she arched her head back and her whole body stiffened. “Damn it....it’s poisoned.”

She started to moan in pain.

thwang![/b]

Another metallic sound issued from the opening, and a click after Temmit heard something hit the trees high above to their right.

Whatever is in that pit, it isn’t done firing needles Smokey surmised.

Temmit suddenly grasped the gravity of the situation. He grabbed the lantern as well as Renee's arm and dragged her towards the horses.

"What can we do for the poison?" He asked anxiously (having tried to contain his emotions and failing). He was clumsily trying to drag her over to the horses, where she had indicated the healing potion would be.

The snow on the ground made dragging Renee easier than he would have hoped, and although she didn’t order him to stop, she moaned as he dragged her the distance to the horses.

“Healing potion is in my backpack,” Renee said from her prone position on the ground. Then without warning she yanked the large needle from her own stomach. Biting her lip she covered the wound with both hands, trying to stop the bleeding.

Temmit looked quickly to her rented horse and shoved both his hands in her backpack which was strapped behind the saddle. Thanking his luck, he quickly found the familiar small case which he knew held potions.

“Feels like a lead ball grew in my stomach,” she said through the pain. “But lets worry upon the wound first, the poison after.”

thwang![/b]

Temmit looked up just in time to see a small explosion of light occur high up in the trees and all at once he understood why the needles kept firing. For high up in the trees was a large lantern which was suspended by several chains from the branches of the trees around it. The glass on the lantern had been punctured by the needle and some internal mechanism set it ablaze. The alarm beacon would be seen for miles, let alone by any guard in Lakeshore.

’Yup, you got to appreciate the engineering behind that one’ Smokey commended.

Temmit handed Renee a red vial and turned away, as requested. Actually, he turned upwards towards the beacon. The snow swirled in the light of it, and Temmit realized that perhaps the distance at which the beacon would be seen wouldn't be as far as he had at first feared.

"Still, it'll be far enough, I'll bet." He murmured to himself.

"Smokey, we need you to get up there and put that damed beacon out." Temmit pleaded. "Can you do that? With luck, there's a wick like a conventional lantern; you'd only need to lower it."

Renee swallowed the potion and after a few moments stood up beside Temmit. He quickly looked at her and noted the wound appeared to be closed, although he couldn’t get a really good look at it as her clothing had covered up the entry point. Still, she looked a bit dizzy to him, and unsure on her feet.

“We should flee, there is a chance that someone has already seen the beacon and is making haste to get up here, we should be gone by the time they do,” she said in a manner that didn’t speak to negotiation.

With more strength then he would have credited her for, considering her particular condition, she climbed back into the saddle on her horse.

”Wait,” she said stopping him before he turned to his horse. “I have no idea what the after affects of this poison may be,” she said wearily. “You need to lead just in case I falter.”

With that, she reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a pinch of dried carrot. “This spell will allow you to see without our lantern,” she tried to say quickly. She then took in a breath and tried to steel her nerves against the obvious pain still coursing through her [Concentration check]. With a quick exhale she incanted the spell, the carrot absorbed by a small white light that held to her fingertips as she waved them before Temmit.

She placed her fingers to each of his temples and his vision changed. Everything in his vision went black and white and the glow of the lantern was now blinding. He quickly put it out and was amazed that he could see detail of everything in all directions for at least fifty to sixty paces. [60 feet actually, Darkvision spell on page 216 of the PHB].

“Yes, and we should drop the horses off at the livery at the South Gate instead of with the...” she stopped and wiped the sweat from her brow. “...instead of with that boy in the north, just in case.”

She then lowered her torso onto the horse’s back, and lay there.

Temmit raised a concerned eyebrow at her.

“Your all-powerful idiot leader is taking a rest,” she said with a small tired smile. “One bit of good news, I don’t the poisoning is going to get worse. If it was, in my experience, I would think we would have seen more dire affects bye now.”

Temmit wordlessly took hold of her horse's reigns and led the animal away from Lakeshore and into the woods. He went as fast as he dared to go.

His plan: ride off wide and far (and fast), taking what opportunities presented themselves to obscure their horse's tracks. He would circumnavigate Our Commons and come upon the road that led northward into the city. Hopefully, there would have been other traffic along that road to hide their own horses’ tracks, and they would be able to get into Our Commons in relative secrecy.

He would worry about where to turn the two horses in if he got that far. It might be a good idea to get someone else to turn them in at a different livery. Or to simply abandon them (this would depend upon what name Renee might have used when she rented them).

In the mean time, he strained his hearing and his eyes to try to detect any followers who might be on their trail. He continually looked behind him to see if there were any lanterns back there.

Renee for her part remained quiet and as time wore on she didn’t appeared to suffer any further affects of the poison. She sat up on the horse after awhile and helped Temmit watch behind them. About a half hand from the scene back at Lakeshore, she spotted four lanterns very far down hill behind them. Temmit reacted by increasing the pace and taking the horses through underbrush. The horses’ complaints to the scratching thickets were drowned out in the wind of the storm and they soon lost sight of the lights behind them.

No further pursuit was spotted afterwards.

In total, it took three hands to travel around the foothills northeast of Clearwater Lake and then circumvent the capital city in a clockwise direction on the map. They finally reached, but didn’t approach, one of the frequent guard-towers of South Road, which stood a few hundred yards away with a blazing beacon lantern at its rooftop.

“We’ll want to travel parallel with the road and not get to close to the guard posts,” Renee said. It was the first time she had spoken since spotting the lanterns, she looked markedly improved.

“My apologies Temmit, that was a real stupid move I made back there,” she said. The tone of the apology was one of a soldier and not an overly emotional girl, it was a tone that Temmit could appreciate.

"Done is done." Temmit responded stoically. "We'll write it down as experience and try to not make the same mistake in the future."

They ploded on for a few turns in silence. "It's getting awfully close to curfew though. It might do for you to let me turn the horses in; I'll tell them that I found them riderless. You see any flaw with that plan?"

Renee looked at the simple time piece that was strapped to her wrist by a worn leather band. The storm had moved on in the last half-hand, and everything was finally still.

“It’s almost half past 11. Curfew isn’t an issue for me this evening.”

“As far as the plan is concerned, that will work. I didn’t use our real identities at the North Gate livery anyway,” she said turning to him, her face very serious now that there was trouble about. “I also don’t think that kid, who I think is in the Harvesters, even recognized me.”

“But what of you? Will Shanteel be looking for your head?” she asked with an eyebrow raised.